Henge and Hawks

Last weekend we went out West for the day.

Even at first sight, Stonehenge seems a contested space. After a journey down the (far too fast) A303, and parking up, this is what the typical visitor sees as they head for the entrance to the site.

Much of this reverberates with cod-history, mythology and romantic wish-fulfilment. It seems to me to have little to do with the ancient site and its uses. The bulldog seemed a typical icon, fuzzily-used and not clearly understood.
However, although having little support from what I can gather are the known facts of history and prehistory, it could be argued that they have as much right to believe their beliefs, and to use the site in their own (non-destructive) ways as any other visitors.

And this is what some of the latter look like:

This site was ancient when the Romans first encountered it.

The really difficult imaginative leap for me is to understand how much it has decayed, and been tumbled around, and how close (or not) the remains are to the intentions of the (various waves of) builders.


As Frances Pryor writes (in Britain BC), Stonehenge is set in a much larger and in some ways more complex landscape of barrows, ditches, causeways and other henges (the remains of woodhenge is not far away). One notion is that a broad ancient concourse lead to Stonehenge, with high banked sides so that it could not be seen until a corner was turned - after which suddenly it leapt out at the traveller, and dominated the skyline ahead.

Other books speak of how the stones are set so as to appear tapered, and taller than they really are from that angle of approach. It certainly seems to have been intended to dominate the area for many miles around.

Here one of the ditches or moats that still surround the stones can be seen.

The view above shows how the heel stone can be seen through one of the archways, with the so-called "altar stone" lying flat in front.

The key point is that the sun, rising, shines over the key stone, through the archway and on to the altar stone (and onwards to where the photograph was taken from) only on Midsummer's day.

There certainly seems to be something in the idea that the stones were laid out with due regard for the cycles of the sky and sun.

(The '4' in the picture just indicates the point in the audio tour where this view is explained. Which is why I can write about it now!)

The other way in which this World Heritage site is contested, I suppose, is by the car. The A303 stops being a dual carriageway as it approaches the site, but it is still very busy.
The guidebook still speaks of the plan to move the road underground, away from the landscape. All very well, I guess, but isn't that an aesthetic move rather than one that properly seeks to conserve the site? Personally, I think a better solution might be to route the whole main road away, and have a small carefully-routed visitor approach road.
The other thing that surprised me, given how inexpensive the tickets to the site seemed, was the number of people such as those above who decided to look at the stones from the chain link fence, much further away.

After the ancient stones, we moved a few miles back down the road to the Hawk Conservancy Centre. We arrived late in the day, and only had the chance to see a few birds flying.

This owl (apparently a Big Grey Owl) is seemingly renowned for having the flattest face of any owl, which makes it ideal as a receptor for sonar apparently.

It was extremely hard to catch the birds in flight in a reasonable photograph. This was one of the better attempts.
And this wasn't!
When the handler brought out four vultures to feed, this one parked himself just above our heads. A dangerous place to sit for those below!
There are also traditional aviaries, holding a really interesting range of birds.

The largest flighted bird.

Personally, I preferred the hunting birds displayed in the mews, such as this American Eagle.

... Frodo...
... and this sharp, stripped-down looking Harris Hawk
As something of a sideshow, the Centre also has a ferret run - these were great fun to watch.

At the end of the day they also staged a 'ferret race' (really, I suppose, just the ferrets' feeding time).

We didn't really have enough time to do the Centre justice. One day, we may go back.

I'll ask my secretary to remind me...